The first trailer for Matt Groening's new 'adult fantasy' Netflix show 'Disenchantment' has landed

Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama and therefore one of the greatest men to ever live – even if he did really drop the ball regarding the recent controversy around Apu – has a new show coming to Netflix this summer. He’s dealt with the present and the future, and is now taking a trip into the past, kind of. 

Disenchantment, described by Groening as “an adult fantasy about a crumbling medieval kingdom known as Dreamland”, looks set to give fantasy tropes the kind of treatment Futurama gave the world of sci-fi.

And we finally have the first trailer for it. So let’s watch it shall we?

It wastes no time in reminding us of Groening’s impeccable credentials. Well, wouldn’t you?

These stills were also released a month ago:

The lady in the middle is Princess Bean, voiced by Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson. In the vein of classic Groening characters like Homer Simpson and Bender Bending Rodriguez, she’s a big ol’ drinker. She is accompanied by her elf Elfo (left), voiced by Oscar-winning screenwriter Nat Faxon (The Descendants) and her personal demon Luci (right), voiced by comedian Eric Andre (star of The Eric Andre Show). 

Other voices will be provided by a combination of Futurama alumni (Billy West, John DiMaggio, Tress Macneille, Maurice LaMarche and David Herman) and British comedians (Lucy Montgomery, Noel Fielding and Rich Fulcher, who pretty much counts as British, right?). 

This is Groening’s first show in twenty years, and he’s been working on it for a while. “Disenchantment will be about life and death, love and sex, and how to keep laughing in a world full of suffering and idiots, despite what the elders and wizards and other jerks tell you,” he told reporters when announcing it.

We’re very excited about this. The character design looks more like Futurama than The Simpsons, and applying the same kind of nerdily affectionate silliness to the world of Dungeons & Dragons and Game Of Thrones as that show did with Star Trek and B-movies should be fantastic. Futurama had plenty of D&D references sneaked into it, including an appearance by [pushes glasses up nose and sits on inhaler] tabletop gaming pioneer Gary Gygax.

Groening released the images on the Netflix subreddit in an impressively sneaky way.

The animation, handled by Rough Draft studios, who worked on both of Groening’s previous shows, looks fantastic. There’s something interesting going on with shadows in the images, both with Luci’s transparent one and Elfo’s pointing the wrong way…

And, due to the Simpsons connection, it’s brought out at least one real life Comic Book Guy…

The ten-episode first season of Disenchantment is on Netflix on August 17th. 

(Pics: Netflix)